Capitalism and the American dream (was: Anti-Americanism?)

Does that include me, T65?

With all due respect, I reckon our net worth puts my family in a league outside of yours.

I chose to work in Government, because I believe in noblesse oblige. I won't retire a millionaire. I didn't make mistakes. I'm not without a "can do" attitude nor ambition.

Extremes, such as that one you positited, ignore one factor you can't relate to - personal sacrifice.

E_S

 

Not really, as I believe you will accomplish everything you set out to. That's success, isn't it?

Heh Heh Heh...E_S is living on the public dole...

 

Don't get me wrong, J-Rod, I know this. There's much more to life than being wealthy, and I can say that seeing what I see, and knowing who I know, and being what I am.

Money isn't always everything.

E_S

 

E_S

First, let me appologize for not stating my position clearly.

I'm fully aware that not everyone defines career success by the amount of money made. I was referring to the people who don't have enough to retire on, who would like to be millionaires and feels it was someone else's fault that they're in the situation they're in.

So no, my comment was flawed and it does not include you.


Second, I feel the statement about your family's net worth was irrelevant and pathetic. What are you trying to say? That because your parents have more money than me, you more of an authority on the subject? My net worth is nothing to boast about. I'm a 28 year old first generation migrant who came here with nothing and only started building assets since I started working 5 and a half years ago. I'm sure a huge number of people here have a larger net worth.

But I am a hard worker. I did build something out of very little. And I have every right to be contemptuous of people who have been here far longer and had much more solid financial groundings and made far less of their lives than me and complain about people like me getting more in tax cuts. So whether I'm worth 3 million or 300 million it makes no difference. My comment was too broad that's all. My net worth has no baring on their validity nor does your family's net worth.

 

I wasn't just talking about my parents, but the point was that I have a certain, I guess, expectation and standard I'm consciously walking away from. It wasn't a putdown, so much as a remark intending a stark contrast.

E_S

 

Lets see, first you say that you can see clearly enough that you?re not going to be one of the richest 1%. By virtue of that statement you?re right.

You continue by saying that because you won?t be a member of that 1% you won?t be entitled to the ?ridiculous tax cuts?. That statement is false. You are entitled to those tax cuts, same as everybody else. Furthermore, nothing in that statement indicates anything other than a hatred for those you perceive as ?rich?.

To further show your ineptitude on this issue about the top 1% you state ?oh yeah your right ? they get tax breaks?. That statement is false as well. The individuals don?t get tax breaks, they get deductions. Corporations get tax breaks. That?s because they create jobs.

Additionally, you sarcastically and dishonestly claimed that you were lambasting me because you claim to think that I rank myself amongst those 1%. That is another false statement. I neither consider myself amongst their numbers nor do I aspire to be. I do, however, understand them and know what they did, and still do, to earn their wealth. I understand that the tax laws of this and all other nations target ONLY the working class, the ?employee? class. Corporations pay taxes much differently than employees but since they are employers they receive tax breaks to encourage hiring more people. I also understand that tax cuts and tax breaks are 2 very different things that accomplish very different objectives.

Until I responded to your diatribe you didn?t even know that I existed so you were not responding to me or anyone else specifically. You were just spewing the same hate speech as all other Liberals who neither understand advanced financial strategies nor the concept of giving back some of the taxes that politicians have been taking away.

So Lets review again, since you didn?t get it right the first time. The top 1% earn no money, therefore, they pay no taxes, therefore, they receive no ?tax cuts? nor ?tax breaks?. The great democrat/liberal lie is that only the very rich got a tax cut. The truth is that anyone who earned money as an employee and who paid taxes got a tax cut.

Wonder why?

OOOOh, you said ?seething?. Seething is such a big word.

Let?s see. You used the term ?brat heirs? and You said that you had no sympathy for someone worth $10 million if the next administration taxes the crap out of them. That is the definition of hate in my book.

I hate poverty in any country, especially in this country. There is lots of opportunity for anyone who wants to become financially independent and self sufficient.
The other problem is we have some poor, misinformed cool-aide drinkers repeating the lies of the left as if they were facts. Is that seething to you? I can actually believe that you?d think so, but a good judge of character you are not.

If I hug, do I turn into a Lib?

No. But then again, that class would have to exist in order for there to be a problem. Since there is no "ownership class" there are no problems as you interpret them. More lies from the left. The closest thing we have to that are the very Senators and Representatives th

 

Alright, alright. You know what Ive gleamed from our wonderful dialouge? That were far better at insulting each other than being convincing about our differing philosophies. Lets just leave it at that. Ill just finish by saying if that is your definition of hate you need something I cant give you.

 

I was referring to the people who don't have enough to retire on, who would like to be millionaires and feels it was someone else's fault that they're in the situation they're in.

I know people like this. They think you owe them a living because they don't have a college degree or a career. There are scam artists gallore every where in the world - ALL are trying to become millionaires and make it big the easy way. There is no easy way - so some resort to scam and deception. I know these two guys who had a magic marker board up in their garage, with people's names on it, plotting out how they would get ownership rights to "OTHER" people's films posing as Producers. I'd LOVE to bring these two losers down and I'm waiting for an opportunity (and am spreading the word)! And they had my name up there, so I remember I walked up and erased my name off the their board. I remember the fatter one telling me "we're going to be millionaires within two years." So his plan was various deceptions. You have to work hard for what you want. So, unfortunately, off to work you go, because you owe you owe you owe.

 

first you say that you can see clearly enough that you?re not going to be one of the richest 1%. By virtue of that statement you?re right.

Considering that only 1% of the population can be the richest 1% of the population, I'd say that the average person is better off not wanting to be part of the richest 1% because if they do, that's 99% of the population that is pissed off enough to take away everything the 1% has.

In a system like ours, and I hate to be the one to break this to you, there will be those with lots of money and those without it. You say that all those that have money had an equal opportunity than those that doen't have money and it's the poor person's own fault because they had an equal chance at getting rich, or have an equal change. Such an idea is patently absurd. Because a very few "poor" people have gotten rich it does NOT follow that all poor people can become rich the same way the few were able to.

Why is that you can't see that we do not have equality of opportunity in this world? Are there some opportunities for poor people? Maybe. Are there more opportunities for rich people? Absolutely! Just because some a few opportunities have existed for some poor to become rich means nothing. What is important is that not all poor people even CAN become rich, no matter if every single one of them was an entreprenuer who worked his butt off all day.

Some would be more successfull than others and because a basic assumption in economics is that resources are scarce or limited, most hard working people will loose any capital they had to the few because they will be better able to manage capital. They will then be relegated to provide labor, the only commodity they have, which will not give them as much money to use on education or in investments that yield a higher return.

If today everyone was turned into clones of Bill Gates and Rupert Murdock we would still have billions of poor people.

 

Excellent post, Espaldapalabras.

And to take it one step further, I think this is the source of the cross talk we have here (and in some other threads relating to economics). The conservatives (or liberals, since of course, we are talking economics) say that everyone has a chance to be rich. This works on a personal level but fails on a public policy level. The structuralists (or political liberals) argue that everyone can't be rich and that capitalism supports a system where there are a few wealthy and many not wealthy and therefore some of that wealth should be redistributed through various means. This works as public policy, but fails on the individual level, as is shown with those who are content to depend on the state.

 

Well how do you explain our family friends?

Chinese migrants who came to Australia at 40 years of age with no university degree, no money, one kid and don't speak English. Do they have an unfair advantage over your average citizen who was born here?

These people work 2 sometimes 3 jobs. Didn't waste a cent and saved like crazy. Bought their first house and paid for it in full after 6 years. Then they used the equity in the house as a down payment for a small food store. Both partners worked there 12 hours a day 364 days a year (x-mas day off only) and their kid did her homework and watched TV in their office.

They did this for 7 straight years. Now they're worth close to 3 million because they were careful with their money and put it in real estate and blue chip stocks which have slowly but steadily gained in value.

So how is it that people in first world countries are kept down if they weren't?

 

Did you not even read my post? I already explained that a few can become rich but that doesn't mean everyone can. If everyone worked like your friends did, not everyone would be worth 3 million dollars. Jediflyer has it right, for the individual your ideas are much more useful, but here we are talking about public policy and you are ignoring the fact that capitalism creates winners and loosers. You want to totally ignore the loosers because they couldn't cut it in the cuthroat world? Do so at your own risk and don't get upset when they take everything you worked so hard for away.

I would also say Jediflyer, that a lot of the differences over "choices" stem from the fact some people look at things from an individual perspective and some look at them from a social one.

 

WRONG, UNTRUE, FANTASY, EXCUSES!!!

IF everyone worked like my friend, you're right. There's not enough resources to allow everyone to achieve a net worth of $3 million.

But, newsflash, there will never be a time when everyone will work like my friend. It's like saying if every animal in Africa was a lion there wouldn't be enough food. There will always be hard workers and slackers. Hard workers move up in the world, slackers stay put or drop down. Meritocracy, it's a wonderful thing.

Now let's get back to reality. In countries like Australia and the U.S., a wonderful system is in place. The vast majority of people who work as hard as my friend will at the very least achieve a comfortable life style. People who work hard and are smart and careful with their money will achieve my friend's level. People who work hard and are daring with their money will either go beyond or drop back down. Therefore your fortunes are determined by your work ethic, brains and attitude. Luck is a minor factor.

As I've stated before, in the third world, luck is a significant factor. In 1st world countries, luck is an excuse for slackers to explain why their life is ****.

And doing as you suggested, taking a society wide view rather than an individual view, I still fail to see how or why hard workers in the 1st world can be kept from achieving a good comfortable life.

 

Did I ever say that most hard workers in the US can't get ahead? No. The point is that even in our society, which is one of the most socially mobile in history, we still are far from real equality of opportunty among the least well off in society.

In my economics class today we talked about the different forms of resources, in human resources you have labor and entreprenurial(sp?) ability. They are not the same thing. Frankly if you have only labor and work as hard as you can, you will never be rich. In the US a blue collar worker that works hard still has a good chance of leading a comfortable lifestyle, but that is disappearing. Most of these success stories are of people with lots of entreprenurial ability. Those who bring them up tend to say that because these people used this ability to create wealth anyone can do it, when in fact not everybody has equal amounts of entreprenurial ability, and most probably have none at all.

I don't buy that the rich people just work harder, the numbers don't support that, the article I posted a while ago in that other thread shows that while the rich are working hard, so are the poor people. The hardest workers I have ever seen in my life have been Haitians in the Dominican Republic that worked construction jobs. Mexicans are lazy slobs compared to them, they worked 14 hour days building cemet buildings without any mechanical help, and got paid almost nothing. (even with PPP included E_S)

 

IF everyone worked like my friend, you're right. There's not enough resources to allow everyone to achieve a net worth of $3 million.

Resources are unlimited. There is not a set amount of money. There is no reason why people couldn't retire in America by the age of 35 and be a millionaire.

 

Resources are unlimited.

PPOR.

 

Oil sure isn't unlimited.

 

Easy enough.

The world economies are all growing at once. This is a phenominal period of growth. So, if the GDP of the entire world is increasing, resources are unlimited. If not, then we must be taking economic resources from off-planet somewhere to add to Earth's.

 

The GDP is only growing in nations that have already developed.

 

J-Rod

Well I would say we're utilizing more resources, or technology has allowed more efficient utilization of resources or we've discovered new resources (like uranium for energy production). That's no proof that resources are unlimited.

And while I've always repected you and your posts, I have ZERO respect for Robert Kalwasaki and his views. So I hope that's not where your statement came from.

 

Nope. David Pilzner's book, The Next Millionaires. And I'm not talking about physical resources. I'm talking about economic resources. Wealth creates wealth. It doesn't take it from somewhere else.

EDIT: I happen to like Kiasaki. What don't you like about him?

 

Huh? Because we have growing populations that means we have no resource cap? While I don't buy the whole "Limits to Growth" book, we only have one Earth, so the math is pretty easy, with one Earth we only have the amount of resources that one Earth may contain, and that is a limit. While we do not know exactly how much resources we have, they are indeed limited.

 

I'm not talking about physical resources. Again, I'm talking about economic resources.

 

Mexicans are lazy slobs compared to them, they worked 14 hour days building cemet buildings without any mechanical help, and got paid almost nothing. (even with PPP included E_S)

other than this, i strongly endorse what you said in your recent posts, as jediflyer did.

 

Real Estate is probably the best way to make that million.

Mexicans are lazy slobs

I wonder how much harder it is for a white person to make it rich than it is for a mexican or a black? Or an Asian? I remember somebody telling me once "when have you never seen a Mexican NOT working??" HIs implication was - Mexicans always work, so respect them. Well, ok...but after thinking about it, I finally replied "Legally or illegally?" When I see an illegal alien selling fruit on the side of the street corner (especially in a nice neighborhood like Beverly Hills), I just want to take their fruit bags and throw them back to Mexico. Some of those immigrants aren't even legal, and work several jobs under the table and don't pay taxes, so of course they're going to SAVE. So give the average tax paying American a break.